


Something I Can Never Have

by Dogsled



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Gen, M/M, Slash, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-09
Updated: 2006-08-09
Packaged: 2018-09-30 11:04:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: Igor Karkaroff/Severus Snape - Odd Pairing fest - Prompt "One must always do what the Dark Lord wants". Lines of the song 'Something I Can Never Have' are unspoken, and only used as a frame for the story to sit upon. They are written,  performed and owned by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HP Fandom](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HP_Fandom_\(archive\)), which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HP Fandom collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hpfandom/profile).

Something I Can Never Have

_I still recall the taste of your tears  
Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears_

Soft skin under his fingertips, the harsh memory of a lovely thing lost. Perception was a powerful thing: right now, Severus Snape was deeply immersed in his mind, and yet at the same time he was back in the past – a year ago tonight. The smell is that of snow and evergreens; the powerful smell of horse, and the scent of fear and exertion and sex. The only thing he can see in the dying firelight is the man beneath him; the only thing he can feel is his body, strong – but thoroughly submitted to him.

He leans down, brushes his nose along the column of an elegant throat and brings his lips up to the soft curve of the other man’s ear, licking the soft flesh as he breaths in the smell of sweat from his hair.

Slowly he maps his face with his lips. His lover is crying, begging. He doesn’t want more – he wants to be free. Severus kisses away his tears, but he cannot reassure him; cannot give him what he wants. He kisses the hot cheeks, and then draws back. A sightless, beaten, skeletal corpse looked back up at him – and that, it proved, was too much for Severus’ tentative hold on unconsciousness.

_My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore  
Scraping through my head ‘till I don’t wanna sleep any more_

Severus woke breathless, his heart racing horribly fast in his chest. Memories: Memories so far away -- and yet so close and horrible that they tore through the very fiber of his being with their reality. They left him disorientated as he sat up in a dark room surrounded by the musk of his familiar chambers at Hogwarts, and yet unable to discern quite where he was until he lit up the candle at his bedside, filling the room with black shadows. The light made the vision more feasible, rather than chasing it away.

In the darkness, the shadows twisted and turned, darkened and brightened. They tentatively took on recognizable shapes, and then became indiscernible again. For a moment, his dream came to life like a Balinese puppet show, played by grotesque silhouettes, and then it was gone, and Severus remembered nothing but for the creepy unpleasantness that clambered up his spine like a cold, long legged insect.

It had been the kind of dream that makes you not want to go back to sleep; the kind of dream that lingers horribly. It had been close to reality: a memory, twisted into something worse - but only just – by the feckless cruelty of nightmare. Severus’ sheets were wet with sweat. He could smell the fear on his own skin. He pulled himself out from underneath the covers, the cold of the air on his damp skin refreshing; waking him up.

But the longer he stayed outside of bed, the more he remembered of his dream. A young man, not unlike himself: hair like the deepest night framing an upturned face and glittering eyes that looked up at him with trust and adoration. As he watched, the figure took form before him, seated in his armchair. Ghostly firelight lit up the contours of his face, showing unmistakably who this vision was: Igor Karkaroff; friend and lover. 

Igor was speaking, but Snape couldn’t hear him. He could only see the movements of his mouth – soundlessly mimicking words spoken a lifetime ago. Snape turned away as he had done then; lifting his hands up to hold onto his hair, twisting it away from his temple. When he turned back, tears in his eyes, Karkaroff was gone, and he was firmly back in the past again – his present chased away by the strength of emotion and memory.

Outside the abandoned and decrepit mill, Snape could hear the sound of a wild neigh; the call of a frightened horse surprised in the moonlight. There was a crack, another neigh, and then a thundering of hooves. Karkaroff was gone once more, and Severus would have to go after him again. He could not return without what the Dark Lord wanted, as much as it pained him. 

And so he stepped out into the blustering cold of the rushing wind and pursued.

_I just want something  
I just want something I can never have_

If it could have been different, it would have been. Long ago; what felt like a hundred years, Severus had received an invitation from the Durmstrang Institute. Severus would have jumped at the glance to go to Durmstrang to learn the Dark Arts, but his mother and father had refused to shell out the amount of money that it would require to send him abroad. If Severus had been born a pureblood like Igor and Lucius, then he could have gone. Carrying the name Prince, he would have been adored – and he could have learned everything he had ever desired to learn.

If Severus had gone to Durmstrang, he would have been friends with Karkaroff – he had no doubt about it. As it was, they had gone to different schools. When Karkaroff had left school, he had been brought into the Dark Lord’s fold, as had Severus. It was there that they had made friends…and quickly become lovers.

And now Karkaroff was on the run from Voldemort – and having discovered where he was, the Dark Lord had thought it a just punishment to send him to kill his ex-lover; and bring back his left forearm.

_You always were the one to show me how  
Back then I couldn’t do the things that I can do now_

It might have been easier if Karkaroff wasn’t his lover. It might have been easier if neither had known the other. But they had shared so much together. Karkaroff had taught him a lot of the Dark Arts that he hadn’t managed to learn. He was a talented man. It wasn’t the only thing that Karkaroff had taught him. He taught him about ways to keep warm on cold nights - and on the warmer nights, they could experiment even more.

Even with the Dark Lord always present – they had found time to be together. They had been close companions – they shared the same interests, and none could question the time they spent together as being anything more than two studious individuals interested in the Dark Arts combining their extensive knowledge.

But then things had changed. The Dark Lord fell and everything changed.

It had hurt when he had heard about Karkaroff’s trial. The man had named Death Eaters, just as Severus had encouraged him to do. It was that or watch his lover become soul-food for a Dementor. Perhaps that would have been a better fate, in retrospect. None the less, he had given Karkaroff names. He hadn’t expected his lover to add his own name to the others. Severus Snape…it had been a betrayal.

When they let him go, Karkaroff fled back to Bulgaria; and Severus had known little of him since.

When Karkaroff had come back during the Triwizard Tournament, all previous hurts were forgotten. They were once again two friends together – and within a few days of the visit’s start, they had become lovers once more. It had been a blissful year that had ended with tragedy. 

And Karkaroff had hidden well. But not well enough. Little more than a year later, and the Dark Lord had found him.

_This thing is slowly taking me apart  
Grey would be the color if I had a heart_

Riding in the darkness, his horse tired from the day’s chase, Snape has plenty of time to think of the painful past, to feel it stabbing into him like a knife. Somewhere ahead of him, Karkaroff is riding too. Somewhere ahead of him, Karkaroff is riding in the darkness and thinking of the past too – and knowing that sometime in the soon to be future, it will all have to come to an end.

Severus would offer his life to his lover – but he knows that Karkaroff would take it in a heartbeat if he was given the chance. Karkaroff has offered his life once before – long ago in an enormous, loud courtroom, deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic. Severus cannot offer his life now: he has too much responsibility.

And so with a stony heart he rides on, knowing what will come at the end of this ride. His love would die – and his own affection would die with it. It would be all he could do to keep sober when this was over – and to keep his promises to Dumbledore. He will never tell the older man who killed Igor Karkaroff.

_In this place it seems like such a shame  
Though it all looks different now, I know it’s still the same_

The dim light that Karkaroff has lit inside the shack pierces the darkness, and Severus’ tired eyes. He can see it twinkling through the trees from miles away – and for a while he thinks of it as some creature, luring him in. But he knows that Karkaroff won’t kill him. Perhaps he has grown tired of running. Snape dismounts when he reaches the ramshackle building, ties his horse up beside the door, and then heads inside.

Karkaroff is standing by the far wall. His wand is on the floor between them. Severus looks at him for a long time. In the graying, haggard man before him, he can see the Igor that he had known at other times: 

He sees the black haired, charming young man who sat by the fire in his home in Spinner’s End and never scoffed – only looked up at him adoringly, asked him to join him, and then made love to him on the rug until they were both spent, and slept the night away. 

He can see the older man from last year. He was stronger then, and surer – and he could last all night. They could experiment for hours on end, over and over again – and still somehow rise the following morning to teach. 

Finally there is this Karkaroff; and Severus knows that he still loves him.

_Everywhere I look you’re all I see  
Just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be_

Depositing his own wand, Severus joins Karkaroff one last time. They make love in this tired old shack that will be his lover’s grave, and Severus makes every moment mean a lifetime. As the dawn breaks, Igor screams Severus’ name in pleasure, and Severus speaks the Killing Curse distantly, as though he is speaking it into the mirror so that he might kill himself.

_I just want something I can never have_


End file.
